Thermal expansion and magnetostriction studies on iron pnictides [Elektronische Ressource] / von Liran Wang

Sujets

• Physik

Informations

• Publié par: technische_universitat_dresden
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 35
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 71 Mo

Extrait

Thermal Expansion and Magnetostriction
Studies on Iron Pnictides
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doctor rerum naturalium
(Dr. rer. nat.)
vorgelegt
der Fakultät Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften
der Technichen Universität Dresden
von
Liran Wang
geboren am 24.09.1980 in Henan, China
Institute for Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und
Werkstoffforschung DresdenGutachter: Prof. Dr. Bernd Büchner
Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Hans-Henning Klauß
Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Antheunis (Anne) de Visser
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 19 September 2010Contents
1. Introduction 1
I. Theoretical background and experimental techniques 5
2. Thermodynamic 7
2.1. Thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2. Classification of phase transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3. Ehrenfest relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4. Grüneisen parameter and inner origin of thermal expansion . . . . . 12
3. Experimental methods and techniques 15
3.1. The measurement setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.1. Capacitance bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.2. 18T magnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.3. Sample holder and the vacuum chamber . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.4. Temperature control system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.2. The new capacitance dilatometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.1. Design of the cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2.2. Calibration equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2.3. Cell effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3. Thermal expansion test measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4. Magnetostriction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.4.1. Influence on thermometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.4.2. Eddy currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
iiiContents
II. Thermal expansion and magnetostriction studies on iron
pnictides 35
4. Background: iron pnictide superconductors 37
4.1. High-T superconductors- From cuprates to iron pnictides . . . . . 37C
4.2. The 1111 materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5. Thermal expansion study on LaFeAsO F 451−x x
5.1. Sample preparation and measurement setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2. Measurement results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.2.1. Undoped LaFeAsO - basic properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.2.2. Doped samples LaFeAsO F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541−x x
5.2.3. Fluctuations at low doping x60.04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.3. Discussion-Magnetic phase diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.4. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6. Undoped parent compounds RFeAsO (R=La, Ce, Pr, Sm, Gd) 61
6.1. Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.1.1. High temperature range - two obvious transitions . . . . . . 61
6.1.2. Low temp range - rare earth contribution . . . . . . . 65
6.2. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7. Thermal expansion and magnetostriction of PrFeAsO 69
7.1. Thermal expansion of PrFeAsO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.1.1. Structural and magnetic phase transition . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.1.2. Large field dependence of α(T) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3+7.1.3. Magnetic ordering of Pr moments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.2. Magnetostriction measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
7.3. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
7.3.1. Magnetic phase diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
7.3.2. Entropy changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.4. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
8. Thermal expansion of Ca(Fe Co ) As single crystals 851−x x 2 2
8.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
8.1.1. Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
8.1.2. Sample preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
8.1.3. Characterization - phase diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.2. Measurements and results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
ivContents
8.2.1. Undoped CaFe As single crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 2
8.2.2. Ca(Fe Co ) As (x=0.056) single crystal . . . . . . . . . 891−x x 2 2
8.3. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
9. Summary 93
Bibliography 97
List of Figures 107
vThis page intentionally contains only this sentence.Chapter1
Introduction
After more than 2 decades of intensive research on the cuprate high transition
temperature superconductors [1], the discovery of a new superconducting family, the
ironpnictides,opensanewchapterintheresearchonsupmaterials.In
March2008,apaperfromthegroupofHideoHosonoinJapanrevealedtheexistence
of superconductivity in a layered iron arsenide material: LaFeAsO F (x=0.05–1−x x
0.12), with a transition temperature (T ) up to 26K [2]. Subsequent research fromC
othergroupsshowedthatreplacingthelanthanuminLaFeAsOwithotherrareearth
elements such as Cerium, Samarium, Neodymium or Praseodymium leads to
superconductors with T up to 56K [3]. Besides the high critical temperature, there areC
further striking similarities to the properties of the high-T cuprates. The oxypnic-C
tides have a layered crystal structure with alternating FeAs and LaO sheets,
where
theFeatomsoftheformerarearrangedonasimplesquarelattice[2].Againsimilar
asinthecuprates,superconductivityemergeswhendopingamagneticmothercompound with electrons or holes and thereby suppressing the order (e.g. [4]).
This suggests an interesting interplay between magnetism and superconductivity.
In addition to the interplay of magnetism and charge carriers, structural degrees of
freedom provide another important aspect for understanding new magnetic
materials. An experimental approach to investigate this aspect is to study the thermal
expansion and magnetostriction coefficients which are associated with the changes
ofthemacroscopicsamplelengthwithtemperatureT
andmagneticfieldH,respectively. The large interest in thermal expansion and magnetostriction is connected
to the fundamental importance of the interaction between the electronic and lattice
degrees of freedom for superconductivity and magnetism, which is one of the most
important features also of iron pnictides. Also, they give us a way to understand
11 Introduction
the pressure dependencies of the respective ordering phenomena and the
thermodynamicpropertiesofthematerial,andprovidevaluableinsightintherelevantenergy
changes and the magnetic field induced structural
changes.
Themaingoalofthepresentworkistotakeadvantageofthehigh-precisiondilatometry for thermal expansion and magnetostriction measurements in order to
investigate the interplay between superconductivity, magnetism and lattice. The
thermal expansion coefficient is a thermodynamic response function which enables to
investigate structural phase transitions as well as the couplings of any ordering
phenomenon to the lattice in detail. Usually, for cuprate superconductors,
dilatometric studies have shown a variety of interesting effects in the thermal expansion
[5–9]. For the new iron based superconductors, take the 1111 type for instance, the
most obvious phenomena observed in the undoped mother compound are a
structural transition [10] and a magnetic transition [11, 12] at intermediate temperature
(above 100K).
The approach of high-precision thermal expansion measurements for these new
superconductors is successfully realized by employing our miniature three-terminal
dilatometer. Among several often used techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, strain
gauges and interferometry, the high resolution capacitance dilatometry is believed
to be the most suitable candidate to perform very accurate measurements. In order
to get a well working setup, a shielding tube is used here to reduce the contact
with the liquid Helium, and also two different temperature controlling systems are
employed to get stable thermal environment. By improving the measurement setup
and the calibration, a well established measurement setup with high resolution up
−7to 10 is obtained.
In the frame of the work at hand, several studies have been done on so-called
"1111" compounds of the RFeAsO F system. In addition, first data on sin-1−x x
gle crystals of the "122" material Ca(Fe Co ) As are presented. In particu-1−x x 2 2
lar, LaFeAsO F has been investigated for the first time, as well as undoped1−x x
RFeAsO with R = La, Ce, Pr, Sm, Gd. In LaFeAsO F , the lattice effects at1−x x
the structural and the magnetic phase transition have been investigated and the
phase diagram upon F-doping has been studied. A main result is the
observation of a previously unknown fluctuation regime in the phase diagram and of the
absence of any structural anomalies in the normal state of the superconducting
LaFeAsO F samples. Similar measurements for RFeAsO with different Rare-1−x x
earth sub